25.2.2016 – An exhumation was carried out on the foundations of Meho Aljic’s house in Bikavac where on 27.6.1992 one of the worst war crimes was committed during the genocide 1992-95. At least 70 women and children were burnt alive by Bosnian Serb soldiers.

On 25.2.2016, the Missing Persons Institute conducted an exhumation on this location and found one piece of human bone. There were several exhumations conducted on this location but this was the first time a human bone was discovered.

The crime scene was destroyed by the local authorities during or after the war. The house was bulldozed and the site was turned into a garbage dump.

DNA analysis will be conducted on the discovered bone in order to try and establish an identity of a victim.

Former Bosnian Serb Army serviceman Oliver Krsmanovic was sentenced to 18 years in prison for crimes against humanity including the killings and forced disappearances of Bosniaks in Visegrad in 1992.

Justice Report – BIRN
The state court in Sarajevo on Monday found Krsmanovic guilty on eight counts for taking part in the killings and forced disappearances of Bosniak civilians, as well as other inhumane acts in the eastern Bosnian town of Visegrad during wartime.

The court ruled that Krsmanovic took part in the hijacking and killing of 16 Bosniak civilians travelling from Sjeverin in Serbia on October 22, 1992, and in the killings of eight Bosniak men at the Varda factory in Visegrad earlier that year.

Krsmanovic was also convicted of being responsible for the forced disappearance of a number of civilians, the torture of one Bosniak in Visegrad and beating up a prisoner in the Rasadnik detention camp in 1995.

The court however cleared him of taking part in rapes and torture.

It also said that the prosecution failed to prove that Krsmanovic took part in the burning alive of 80 Bosniak civilians in Bikavac in June 1992.

“The role of the defendant [in the Bikavac killings] was unclear to the chamber,” said presiding judge Darko Samardzic.

The court further acquitted Krsmanovic of two incidents of rape and sexual abuse at the Vilina Vlas Hotel in Visegrad because the witnesses were unsure whether the defendant was the person who assaulted them.

“We believe that the punishment fits the crime and the role of the defendant,” said Samardzic.

“The chamber finds no mitigating circumstances. The fact that the defendant is a family man has no bearing on the crimes. He offered no remorse, but continued to commit crimes,” the judge added.

This verdict can be appealed, while the two-and-a-half years that Krsmanovic spent in custody from 2011 to 2013 will count toward his sentence.

Former Bosnian Serb Army soldier Dragan Sekaric was sentenced to 14 years in prison for rape and murder in the village of Kosovo Polje in the Visegrad municipality in 1992.
Sekaric was found guilty on Friday of going to a house in Kosovo Polje in June 1992 with other Bosnian Serb soldiers and taking several civilians outside, after which he raped a woman inside the house.

He was also convicted of pushing a civilian called Fatima Jamak into a burning house on the same day, and killing her afterwards.

Presiding judge Mira Smajlovic said that the Bosnian prosecution had proved that Sekaric committed his crimes with intent and that the testimonies of the rape victim and another witness who in the village were “convincing and objective”.

“The defence challenged the credibility of witnesses S1 [the victim] and S3 [the eyewitness], considering their descriptions of a person they knew as Dragan Gorazdak differed. However, the trial chamber finds that the witnesses gave satisfactory explanations for these differences. Namely, they were in a state of fear and it is clear why they did not remember details they did not find important,” said Smajlovic.

The judge also said that Sekaric’s alibi – given by his uncle, who testified that the defendant was in Serbia – was not convincing.

Smajlovic said that while considering the 14-year sentence, the court took into account the fact that he was a family man with two children as a mitigating circumstance and the brutality of his crime as an aggravating circumstance.

The verdict however acquitted Sekaric of taking part in an attack on Kokino Selo in Gorazde, robbing and taking away a man and his son from Visegrad, both of whom were never seen again, and beating a prisoner in the Uzamnica detention camp.

Smajlovic said witness testimonies about the attack on Kokino Selo only offered “second hand and imprecise” details about Sekaric. She said that the testimony of a witness about the Visegrad incident was also not convincing.

Regarding the prisoner abuse charge, Smajlovic explained that the Bosnian prosecution had failed to call a victim to testify.

“Because of the procedural mistakes of the Bosnian prosecution and the lack of evidence, the trial chamber had no other options then to acquit the defendant of this charge,” said the judge.

A Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) man reading the Qur’an at the Straziste cemetery in Visegrad. The Straziste cemetery is the resting ground for martyrs who were murdered during the genocide in Visegrad 1992-95. Photo credits: Velija Hasanbegovic